Today’s News 22nd October 2022

• Escobar: 'Peaceful Modernization' Is China's Offering To The Global South
  Escobar: ‘Peaceful Modernization’ Is China’s Offering To The Global South

  Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Cradle,

  Xi Jinping just offered the Global South a stark alternative to decades of western diktats, war, and economic duress. ‘Peaceful modernization’ will establish sovereignty, economy, and independence for the world’s struggling states

  

  President Xi Jinping’s work report at the start of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) this past Sunday in Beijing contained not only a blueprint for the development of the civilization-state, but for the whole Global South.

  Xi’s 1h45min speech actually delivered a shorter version of the full work report – see attached PDF – which gets into way more detail on an array of socio-political themes.

  This was the culmination of a complex collective effort that went on for months. When he received the final text, Xi commented, revised and edited it.

  In a nutshell, the CPC master plan is twofold: finalize “socialist modernization” from 2020 to 2035; and build China – via peaceful modernization – as a modern socialist country that is “prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, and harmonious” all the way to 2049, signaling the centenary of the foundation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

  The central concept in the work report is peaceful modernization – and how to accomplish it. As Xi summarized, “It contains elements that are common to the modernization processes of all countries, but it is more characterized by features that are unique to the Chinese context.”

  Very much in tune with Confucian Chinese culture, “peaceful modernization” encapsulates a complete theoretical system. Of course there are multiple geoeconomic paths leading to modernization – according to the national conditions of any particular country. But for the Global South as a whole, what really matters is that the Chinese example completely breaks with the western TINA (“there is no alternative”) monopoly on modernization practice and theory.

  Not to mention it breaks with the ideological straitjacket imposed on the Global South by the self-defined “golden billion” (of which the really “golden” barely reach 10 million). What the Chinese leadership is saying is that the Iranian model, the Ugandan model or the Bolivian model are all as valid as the Chinese experiment: what matters is pursuing an independent path towards development.

  How to develop tech independence

  The recent historical record shows how every nation trying to develop outside the Washington Consensus is terrorized at myriad hybrid war levels. This nation becomes a target of color revolutions, regime change, illegal sanctions, economic blockade, NATO sabotage or outright bombing and/invasion.

  What China proposes echoes across the Global South because Beijing is the largest trade partner of no less than 140 nations, who can easily grasp concepts such as high-quality economic development and self-reliance in science and technology.

  The report stressed the categorical imperative for China from now on: to speed up technology self-reliance as the Hegemon is going no holds barred to derail China tech, especially in the manufacturing of semiconductors.

  In what amount to a sanctions package from Hell, the Hegemon is betting on crippling China’s drive to accelerate its tech independence in semiconductors and the equipment to produce them.

  So China will need to engage in a national effort on semiconductor production. That necessity will be at the core of what the work report describes as a new development strategy, spurred by the tremendous challenge of achieving tech self-sufficiency. Essentially China will go for strengthening the public sector of the economy, with state companies forming the nucleus for a national system of tech innovation development.

  ‘Small fortresses with high walls’

  On foreign policy, the work report is very clear: China is against any form of unilateralism as well as blocs and exclusive groups targeted against particular countries. Beijing refers to these blocs, such as NATO and AUKUS, as “small fortresses with high walls.”

  This outlook is inscribed in the CPC’s emphasis on another categorical imperative: reforming the existing system of global governance, extremely unfair to the Global South. It’s always crucial to remember that China, as a civilization-state, considers itself simultaneously as a socialist country and the world’s leading developing nation.

  The problem once again is Beijing’s belief in “safeguarding the international system with the UN at its core.” Most Global South players know how the Hegemon subjects the UN – and its voting mechanism – to all sorts of relentless pressure.

  It’s enlightening to pay attention to the very few westerners that really know one or two things about China.

  Martin Jacques, until recently a senior fellow at the Department of Politics and International Studies at Cambridge University, and author of arguably the best book in English on China’s development, is impressed by how China’s modernization happened in a context dominated by the west: “This was the key role of the CPC. It had to be planned. We can see how extraordinarily successful it has been.”

  The implication is that by breaking the west-centric TINA model, Beijing has accumulated the tools to be able to assist Global South nations with their own models.

  Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, is even more upbeat: “China will become a leader of innovation. I very much hope and count on China becoming a leader for innovation in sustainability.” That will contrast with a ‘dysfunctional’ American model turning protectionist even in business and investment.

  Mikhail Delyagin, deputy chairman of the Russian State Duma Committee on Economic Policy, makes a crucial point, certainly noted by key Global South players: the CPC “was able to creatively adapt the Marxism of the 19th century and its experience of the 20th century to new requirements and implement eternal values with new methods. This is a very important and useful lesson for us.”

  And that’s the added value of a model geared towards the national interest and not the exclusivist policies of Global Capital.

  BRI or bust

  Implied throughout the work report is the importance of the overarching concept of Chinese foreign policy: the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and its trade/connectivity corridors across Eurasia and Africa.

  It was up to Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin to clarify where BRI is heading:

  “BRI transcends the outdated mentality of geopolitical games, and created a new model of international cooperation. It is not an exclusive group that excludes other participants but an open and inclusive cooperation platform. It is not just China’s solo effort, but a symphony performed by all participating countries.”

  BRI is inbuilt in the Chinese concept of “opening up.” It is also important to remember that BRI was launched by Xi nine years ago – in Central Asia (Astana) and then Southeast Asia (Jakarta). Beijing has earned from its mistakes, and keeps fine-tuning BRI in consultation with partners – from Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Malaysia to several African nations.

  It is no wonder, that by August this year, China’s trade with countries participating in BRI had reached a whopping $12 trillion, and non-financial direct investment in those countries surpassed $140 billion.

  Wang correctly points out that following BRI infrastructure investments, “East Africa and Cambodia have highways, Kazakhstan has [dry] ports for exports, the Maldives has its first cross-sea bridge and Laos has become a connected country from a landlocked one.”

  Even under serious challenges, from zero-Covid to assorted sanctions and the breakdown of supply chains, the number of China-EU express cargo trains keeps going up; the China-Laos Railway and the Peljesac Bridge in Croatia are open for business; and work on the Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway and the China-Thailand Railway is in progress.

  Mackinder on crack

  All over the extremely incandescent global chessboard, international relations are being completely reframed.

  China – and key Eurasian players at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), BRICS+, and Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) – are all proposing peaceful development.

  In contrast, the Hegemon imposes an avalanche of sanctions – not by accident the top three recipients are Eurasian powers Russia, Iran and China; lethal proxy wars (Ukraine); and every possible strand of hybrid war to prevent the end of its supremacy, which lasted barely seven and a half decades, a blip in historical terms.

  The current dysfunction – physical, political, financial, cognitive – is reaching a climax. As Europe plunges into the abyss of largely self-inflicted devastation and darkness  – a neo-medievalism in woke register – an internally ravaged Empire resorts to plundering even its wealthy “allies”.

  It’s as if we are all witnessing a Mackinder-on-crack scenario.

  Halford Mackinder, of course, was the British geographer who developed the ‘Heartland Theory’ of geopolitics, heavily influencing US foreign policy during the Cold War: “Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; Who rules the Heartland commands the World Island; Who rules the World Island commands the World.”

  Russia spans 11 time zones and sits atop as much as one third of the world’s natural resources. A natural symbiosis between Europe and Russia is like a fact of life. But the EU oligarchy blew it.

  It’s no wonder the Chinese leadership views the process with horror, because one of BRI’s essential planks is to facilitate seamless trade between China and Europe. As Russia’s connectivity corridor has been blocked by sanctions, China will be privileging corridors via West Asia.

  Meanwhile, Russia is completing its pivot to the east. Russia’s enormous resources, combined with the manufacturing capability of China and East Asia as a whole, project a trade/connectivity sphere that goes even beyond BRI. That’s at the heart of the Russian concept of Greater Eurasia Partnership.

  In another one of History’s unpredictable twists, Mackinder a century ago may have been essentially right about those controlling the Heartland/world island controlling the world. It doesn’t look like the controller will be the Hegemon, and much less its European vassals/slaves.

  When the Chinese say they are against blocs, Eurasia and The West are the facto two blocs. Though not yet formally at war with each other, in reality they already are knee deep into Hybrid War territory.

  Russia and Iran are on the frontline – militarily and in terms of absorbing non-stop pressure. Other important Global South players, quietly, try to either keep a low profile or, even more quietly, assist China and the others to make the multipolar world prevail economically.

  As China proposes peaceful modernization, the hidden message of the work report is even starker. The Global South is facing a serious choice: choose either sovereignty – embodied in a multipolar world, peacefully modernizing – or outright vassalage. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 10/21/2022 – 23:40

• More Americans Now Believe In Aliens
  More Americans Now Believe In Aliens

  Belief in aliens is growing in the United States, according to surveys by YouGov America.

  As Statista’s Anna Fleck reports, where just 20 percent of Americans thought that UFOs are probably either an alien ship or alien life form in 1996, the figure has crept up to 34 percent in 2022.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  UFOs aside, nearly two thirds of respondents said that it is likely that aliens exist at all.

  

  But what are they like – if they are out there?

  According to the poll, most U.S. adults think it’s pretty unlikely that they would resemble the green monsters of sci-fi stories (49 percent). The majority would say, however, that they are likely to be far more technologically advanced than humans, with more than a third of respondents saying they thought aliens would even be hostile towards our species.

  The survey also found that of the U.S. adults who said they had seen a UFO, a third of them believe it was an alien.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 10/21/2022 – 23:20

• Internet Sting Operation "J6 DELETED" Exposes How Twitter Manipulated Jan. 6 Narrative "In Real Time"
  Internet Sting Operation “J6 DELETED” Exposes How Twitter Manipulated Jan. 6 Narrative “In Real Time”

  Authored by Patricia Tolson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The developer of a social media monitoring algorithm explains how his internet sting operation “J6 DELETED” exposed how Twitter manipulated the narrative “in real time” on Jan. 6, 2021.

  

  In 2018, Jason Sullivan—a social media and Twitter specialist—was subpoenaed by the special counsel investigating the now-debunked theory that Trump was colluding with Russia. Sullivan is now the lead investigative consultant to former President Donald Trump’s legal team, via Peter Ticktin. In an exclusive interview with The Epoch Times, Sullivan explains how he discovered evidence of a coordinated operation by influencers and Twitter to set the narrative on Jan. 6, 2021, as events unfolded.

  “We’ve created an algorithm that enables us to determine which tweets are on a trajectory of becoming a viral event,” Sullivan explained. “We are watching social media intelligence in real-time, all day, every day, based on specific search terms, key phrases, and hashtags. Our algorithm can tell us exactly how much traction a particular tweet is receiving and how often people are reciprocating, such as liking and retweeting. When it meets a certain threshold, we are automatically alerted.”

  Jan. 6, 2021

  “Leading up to January 6, we were listening to the social media discourse,” Sullivan recalled, “and we set up the program to capture every viral event that took place on January 6 that pertained to the name ‘Trump.’ Think about that. ‘Trump’ is the most tweeted word on the planet, and whether they liked Trump or hated Trump, if their post included the word ‘Trump,’ we flagged it. We were listening to people who were trending. We were listening to people who were leaking things. We were listening to people who were seeding disinformation. What we discovered is that there were trends that clearly indicated there was going to be some type of false flag operation on January 6.”

  As Sullivan noted, “the one who drives the narrative, drives the outcome.”

  

  “What we discovered is that many of these captured tweets, which had exculpatory evidence, had been conveniently and systematically removed from Twitter and some of the pages have even been scrubbed from the internet,” Sullivan recalled. So too had the communications feeds and comments within the viral threads, which contained additional exculpatory evidence.

  “I want to make it perfectly clear that we conducted this sting operation,” Sullivan asserted. “We have it all. We have all of the tweets and all of the exculpatory evidence Twitter thinks it scrubbed from the internet. We have them all.”

  The collection of all viral tweets captured by his algorithm—J6 DELETED—is now available to the public.

  The Social Media Influencers

  According to Nashville Film Institute, “Social media influencers” are “digital creators with a large social media following,” who “spark dialogues, set trends, and generate interest among their fan communities.” Among the dozens of influences who were active on Jan. 6, several stood out as leaders in pushing what Sullivan calls “the false flag narrative.”

  

   

  Aaron Rupar, an associate editor at VOX, initiated no less than 18 viral Twitter posts on Jan. 6.

  Investigative journalist Lara Logan has worked closely with Sullivan and has seen his trove of tweets captured by his algorithm. She knew immediately that Rupar was spreading misinformation. In particular, she knew Rupar’s claim that Trump attacked “four black people within 30 seconds” when speaking about Stacy Abrams and Oprah Winfrey “had absolutely nothing to do with race.”

  During Trump’s speech on Jan. 6, he mentioned Abrams twice near the halfway point and twice near the end. All references were related to her failed campaign to become governor of Georgia. Trump also mentioned Winfrey, twice, once saying Oprah “used to be” a friend of his and then how he “didn’t notice there were too many calls coming in from Oprah” after he became president.

  Rupar is so well known for his history of spreading misinformation and false narratives that on March 21, 2021, the Urban Dictionary unveiled a new verb, “rupar.” It means “to lie with impunity; a brazen statement with a focus on misleading, usually with intention of a predetermined outcome.”

  Social media influencer MeidasTouch had 14 tweets go viral on Jan. 6. According to Open Secrets, MeidasTouch, a “Democratic/Liberal” Super PAC based in Macomb, Michigan. According to the Federal Election Commission, the largest disbursements appear to primarily benefit Prestige WW Inc., “founded in 2020 to help progressive candidates and organizations stick it to Trump and his enablers online” and the PACs founding brothers, Jordan and Bret Meiselas.

  In the meantime, attorney and Harvard Professor Laurence Tribe was responsible for eight viral Twitter posts on Jan. 6, primarily to insult and berate Trump.

  

  According to Logan, Tribe is also “one of the biggest architects of the whole insurrection narrative, both publicly and behind the scenes.”

  Along with helping push the “false flag narrative” as an influencer on Jan. 6, Tribe has been a key influencer in pushing the narrative that Trump should be indicted. Tribe also used social media on Oct. 13 to advise Attorney General Merrick Garland that “it won’t be enough … to approve indictments of Trump related to Mar-a-Lago & obstruction. [Garland] will have to approve indictments for trying to overthrow the election, seditious conspiracy & insurrection.”

  A day earlier, Tribe appeared on MSNBC, suggesting how many crimes Garland could indict Trump with.

  While Sullivan noted that “every person listed in J6DELETED is an influencer because every single one of those 1,058 tweets were considered viral events,” he also pointed out that the only posts that were deleted by Twitter were those on the conservative side. Along with the influencers, he said there were also “coordinators,” people “using similar language in their tweets to perpetuate the chosen narrative.” Words like “seditionist,” “fascist,” “insurrectionists,” and phrases like “clashed with police,” “stormed the Capitol,” “terrorist coup,” and “domestic terrorists” were promoted.

  Asked if he believes the influences and coordinators will be nervous when they learn that their activities are being monitored and exposed, Sullivan said, “I think they better.”

  The Epoch Times reached out to Rupar and Tribe for comment.

  The Silenced Conservatives

  While liberal influencers pushed the narrative that Trump instigated a deadly insurrection and his supporters were violently storming the United States Capitol, anyone who posted anything that conflicted with that narrative had their posts deleted and their accounts shut down.

  

  Elijah Schafer posted that “Trump supporters have breached the Capitol building …” In response, Tracy Beanz said, “I don’t know that these are necessarily Trump supporters … But holy hell.” In a similar post by BNO News, Beanz said “These don’t look like Trump supporters to me.” As liberals began posting that Trump supporters were clashing with and pepper spraying police around 10:45 a.m. (PST), Beanz noted 10:53 a.m. (PST) that “The Trump crowd HAS NOT reached the capitol yet.” All of her posts were subsequently deleted and her account was suspended.

  

  The Election Wizard said he “would not be surprised if a number of Trump Supporters clashing with police are Antifa in disguise.” His post was deleted and his account “doesn’t exist” anymore. For asking “who wears all black and attacks law enforcement,” the account of J Homes was also suspended.

  

  Melissa Tate posted a video showing Trump supporters stopping suspected ANTIFA members from breaking Capitol windows. “Dems set us up & GOP just threw us under the bus over a trap,” she said. Her post was deleted and her account was shut down.

  The account for Lrihendry is temporarily unavailable because it violates the Twitter Media Policy. The accounts for Cari Kelemen, Truth and ArtTV1, Gen. Michael Flynn, X22 Report, Sydney Powell1, TheReal Maddog58, Kevin McCullough/KMC Radio, Carlos Silva, Melissa Tate, and Awakened Outlaw were also suspended. These are but a few of the hundreds of silenced conservative voices.

  Shutting Down Trump

  The most notable victim of Twitter’s censorship on Jan. 6 was Trump himself.

  

  Twitter started by deleting Trump’s tweets. When he posted a video message calling for peace, Twitter disabled the ability of anyone to like or share his message.

  

  Then they removed the video completely. Twitter then locked his account for 12 hours, saying, “If the Tweets are not removed, the account will remain locked.”

  “Future violations of the Twitter Rules, including our Civic Integrity or Violent Threats policies, will result in permanent suspension of the @realDonaldTrump account,” Twitter Safety added.

  

  Then Facebook banned Trump for 24 hours. Then Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram, announced he was “locking” Trump’s “Instagram account for 24 hours as well.”

  

  In the meantime, people like Reps. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), and even President-elect Joe Biden were demanding that Trump tell his supporters to stop and go home.

  

  

  Sullivan also said the Jan. 6 Committee has had this information for months.

  “The January 6 Committee contacted my attorney and asked for all of my email communications regarding January 6,” Sullivan explained, adding it included the posts deleted by Twitter. “We gave it to them, and now they voted to subpoena Trump, demanding that he provide evidence to defend himself against their allegations. I hope exposing this will encourage them to be more forthcoming with the evidence they received from me five months ago.”

  According to Trump attorney Peter Ticktin, the truth is in the silence.

  1984

  “If you want to know what truth is, just look at what you’re not allowed to say,” Ticktin, founder and Senior Managing Partner at The Ticktin Law Group told The Epoch Times. “In a free world, where we are allowed to have a voice, it doesn’t matter if someone makes up a lie because the truth will out. But if you need to hide truth then you have to censor everything and you have to erase people and eliminate their ability to say things.”

  

  Ticktin, who also attended New York Military Academy with Trump, said the coordinated effort by liberal news media, social media influencers, Big Tech, and politicians to silence conservative voices reminds him of George Orwell’s “1984,” which warned of a world governed through propaganda, surveillance, and censorship.

  “It seems like that’s the example they want to live by in terms of how to run society,” Ticktin explained. “If you look at the January 6 unselect committee and you believe that the election was fair and that Donald Trump was pushing ‘the big lie,’ everyone but The Epoch Times is required to put that news out, including FOX and Newsmax. But if you show evidence like in 2,000 Mules, and how Twitter censored voices and deleted exculpatory evidence, there’s no doubt that the election was stolen.”

  For the most part, Ticktin believes the majority of Trump’s base knows the election was stolen.

  “We have eyes,” he said. “We aren’t willfully blind. That’s the biggest difference between the left and the right, willful blindness.”

  It’s ‘Classic Fascist Behavior’

  According to Kirk Wiebe, “the Twitter experience that we’re seeing is not new.”

  Wiebe and William Binney became National Security Agency whistleblowers in September 2002 when they exposed how the government was using a program called Trailblazer to illegally monitor all Americans.

  “Twitter has removed tweets before. It has censored people before,” Weibe told The Epoch Times. “This is a censorship operation by the government working with Big Tech in classic fascist behavior. Whenever government colludes with big business to control people, which is what this is all about, it’s fascism, and I’m not sure the average reader understands that.”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 10/21/2022 – 23:00

• "Would've Gotten Us Killed": US Army Soldiers Head Sick After Using Microsoft's AR Goggles
  “Would’ve Gotten Us Killed”: US Army Soldiers Head Sick After Using Microsoft’s AR Goggles

  Microsoft Corp’s augmented reality headsets are making US Army soldiers sick, according to a Defense Department report, obtained by Bloomberg and Business Insider.

  The 79-page DoD report on the Army’s testing of Microsoft HoloLens mixed reality headsets has yet to be officially released to the public but a summary via Nickolas Guertin, director of the Defense Department’s Operation Test and Evaluation, concluded that 80% of soldiers who used the goggles experienced “mission-affecting physical impairments,” such as headaches, eyestrain, and nausea. 

  One of the testers told Insider, “the devices would have gotten us killed” on the modern battlefield. 

  

  Last year, the Army awarded a $22 billion contract for 120,000 HoloLens even though the military appears to be aware of the issues. 

  

  Army assistant acquisition secretary Doug Bush allowed the first batch of 5,000 HoloLens in August for soldiers. Microsoft told Bloomberg the goggles are still a “transformational platform” and was moving ahead with further deliveries. 

  In a statement to Insider, Brigadier General Christopher Schneider said the goggle testing was successful in “most” criteria, but in some areas, it “fell short,” and improvements would be corrected. 

  There’s also concern the goggles emit a glow from hundreds of meters away that can reveal the soldier’s position on the battlefield. The report said the heads-up display, similar to those used by fighter pilots, was also limiting soldier’s field of view and too bulky for transport. 

  Microsoft has yet to review the DoD report. It said in a statement to Bloomberg that “our close collaboration with the Army has enabled us to quickly build” and adjust the device “to develop a transformational platform that will deliver enhanced soldier safety and effectiveness. We are moving forward with the production and delivery of the initial set” of devices. 

  There are no known long-term eye development effects of users using AR and/or VR goggles, but the symptoms the soldiers experienced point to some short-term adverse effects. Many consumers report headaches, eye strain, dizziness, and nausea after using Meta’s Oculus Pro headset. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 10/21/2022 – 22:40

• 5 Hours Or Less Of Sleep Increases Risk Of Chronic Disease: Study
  5 Hours Or Less Of Sleep Increases Risk Of Chronic Disease: Study

  Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Sleeping for five hours or less a night if you’re age 50 or older could increase your risk of getting two or more chronic diseases as you age, research has found.

  

  The study was published on Oct. 18 in the journal PLOS Medicine.

  Researchers from University College London (UCL) in the United Kingdom tracked the health and sleep duration of 7,864 men and women who were employed in the London offices of the British civil service over 30 years and who had no chronic disease at age 50.

  Self-reported sleep duration was measured six times between 1985 and 2016, and data on sleep duration was extracted at ages 50, 60, and 70. Researchers looked at the data and examined its association with incident multimorbidity over 25 years of follow-up.

  Incident multimorbidity is defined by researchers as having two or more of 13 chronic diseases, including diabetes, cancer, heart disease, and kidney disease.

  The study found that those who slept five hours or less around the age of 50 were 20 percent more likely to have been diagnosed with a chronic disease and 40 percent more likely to be diagnosed with two or more chronic diseases over 25 years, than those who slept seven hours a night.

  Additionally, sleeping for five hours or less at the age of 50, 60, and 70 was linked to a 30 to 40 percent increased risk of two or more chronic diseases when compared with those who slept for up to seven hours.

  

  Americans Not Getting Enough Sleep

  Researchers also found that a sleep duration of five hours or less at age 50 was associated with a 25 percent increased risk of death over the 25 years of follow-up, which they attributed to the increased risk of chronic disease.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 10/21/2022 – 22:20

• Biden DOJ Wants $34 Million To Keep Targeting J6 Defendants
  Biden DOJ Wants $34 Million To Keep Targeting J6 Defendants

  The Biden administration’s weaponized Department of Justice (DOJ) has asked Congress for more than $34 million in new funding to continue its January 6th investigation, NBC News reports. The budget request for 2023 will fund 130 employees, including 80 federal prosecutors, to aid in the “extraordinary,” “unprecedented” and “complex” investigation.

  

  “We don’t have the manpower,” said one official told the outlet, noting that many J6 participants who will eventually be charged haven’t been arrested yet.

  Another official said that the cash crunch was a “culmination” of various factors – including the need to provide support for cases moving to trial.

  A third official called it a “work-in-progress” as prosecutors from US attorney’s offices around the country are recalled to their offices.

  The request comes after federal officials have made around 850 arrests in the nearly 19 months since the incident – just a fraction of the 2,500 people who entered the Capitol, and the “hundreds more who committed serious crimes outside but haven’t yet been arrested.”

  The massive trove of evidence — be it body camera and surveillance video or damning content generated by suspects themselves — presents a tremendous challenge for an enormous bureaucracy working with technology that’s often a few years behind the times, at best.

  The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, which is overseeing the Capitol siege investigation, is also running separate inquiries exploring the fake electors scheme and a conspiracy to obstruct the Jan. 6 electoral vote certification, both of which touch on Trump’s actions in the lead-up to Jan. 6, as well as on the day of the attack. -NBC News

  The requested funding comes after it was slashed from the omnibus spending bill passed in March.

  In an interview earlier this week, Attorney General Merrick Garland told NBC News that he was “confident” the DOJ would be able to handle the workload regardless of what Congress does.

  “Of course, we’d like more resources, and if Congress wants to give that to us, that would be very nice,” Garland said on Tuesday. “But we have people — prosecutors and agents — from all over the country working on this matter, and I have every confidence in their ability, their professionalism, their dedication to this task.”

  Former US Attorney Joyce Vance told MSNBC: “People are concerned about the resources. It’s an enormous amount of cases, and that puts pressure not just on DOJ, but on the courts and probation. It puts pressure on the entire system.”

  The request comes as the latest Harvard / Harris poll shows that just 7% of people think January 6th is one of the most important issues facing the country, while inflation and the economy dominate the top two spots.

  

  For comparison, the entire Mueller Russiagate investigation cost $32 million.

  Anything to ride this into 2024, eh?

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 10/21/2022 – 22:00

• "Unprecedented Conduct": Ohio Supreme Court Suspends Democrat Judge
  “Unprecedented Conduct”: Ohio Supreme Court Suspends Democrat Judge

  Authored by Mimi Nguyen Ly via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The Ohio Supreme Court has indefinitely suspended a local judge, citing “unprecedented misconduct” that includes falsifying court documents, issuing illegitimate arrest warrants, and donning inappropriate attire in court.

  

  Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Pinkey Carr, a Democrat, was found to exhibit such misconduct that comprise more than 100 incidents over a period of about two years.

  The misconduct “encompassed repeated acts of dishonesty; the blatant and systematic disregard of due process, the law, court orders, and local rules; the disrespectful treatment of court staff and litigants; and the abuse of capias warrants and the court’s contempt power,” stated the court’s per curium opinion (pdf). “That misconduct warrants an indefinite suspension from the practice of law.”

  Justices agreed with the court’s three-panel Board of Professional Conduct’s assessment that Carr “ruled her courtroom in a reckless and cavalier manner, unrestrained by the law or the court’s rules, without any measure of probity or even common courtesy,” and that she “conducted business in a manner befitting a game show host rather than a judge of the Cleveland Municipal Court.”

  Indefinite Suspension

  Justices on the Ohio Supreme Court voted 5–2 on Oct. 18 to indefinitely suspend Carr’s law license—a sanction that is the most severe penalty from the court, besides disbarment. The punishment is also more severe than the two-year suspension that the court’s Board of Professional Conduct had sought (pdf).

  Official court documents (pdf) state that Carr, who had been a judge since 2012, is now “indefinitely suspended from the practice of law and immediately suspended from judicial office without pay for the duration of her disciplinary suspension.”

  Carr was found to have ignored an administrative order by the presiding judge of the Cleveland Municipal Court to postpone hearings around March and April 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to not rescheduling hearings, she was determined to have issued arrest warrants for at least 20 non-jail defendants who did not appear in court. Furthermore, she waived fines and court costs for people who were “brave enough” to appear in court in this period. Carr also lied to local news media and to her presiding judge that she did not issue arrest warrants.

  The former judge agreed to some 583 statements of fact and misconduct related to her ethics violations, including acknowledging that she often held hearings without a prosecutor present to avoid complying with procedural safeguards in state law, which include requiring a judge to inform the accused of the nature of the charge, the identity of the complainant, the right to counsel, and the effect of various pleas.

  Carr acknowledged that she has falsified court journal entries to conceal her actions, which included unilaterally entering no-contest pleas and then finding defendants not guilty of their charged offenses, or arbitrarily waiving fines and costs for defendants whom she had found guilty but without looking into their ability to pay the fines. In at least 24 of 34 cases, Carr’s journal entries falsely said looked into defendants’ ability to pay and determined they couldn’t pay. Instead, most of the time, Carr had frequently waived fines and costs based on the defendant’s birth date.

  According to the court’s opinion, Carr put at least five people in jail after she used warrants and incarceration to force people to pay fines and costs by tying their bond to the amount of the fine and costs. She acknowledged that this “essentially created a modern-day debtors’ prison.”

  The court opinion determined that Carr abused her power and held a person in contempt, which resulted in the person serving 15 days in jail.

  It also noted that Carr “violated rules governing the appropriate dress, order, and decorum for courtroom,” noting that her bench “was littered with dolls, cups, novelty items, and junk” and that Carr presided over her courtroom “wearing tank tops, T-shirts—some with images or slogans, spandex shorts, and sneakers.”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 10/21/2022 – 21:40

• Black Death Alters Human Genome 700 Years Later
  Black Death Alters Human Genome 700 Years Later

  The Black Death was one of the world’s largest mortality events ever, wiping out 30-60% of the global population as it swept through North Africa, Europe, and Asia 700 years ago. 

  Newly published research in the medical journal Nature reveals the ancient dead had a secret. DNA samples from victims and survivors of the bacterium Yersinia pestis, also known as the bubonic plague, had distinct genetic differences that helped some survive while others succumbed to death. 

  

  Those genetic differences likely altered the evolution of the human genome, as survivors of the plague passed on genes that once helped them survive the awful plague pathogen to offspring and are now linked to a greater chance of autoimmune diseases such as Crohn’s and rheumatoid arthritis today. 

   “We are the descendants of those that survived past pandemics … and understanding the evolutionary mechanisms that contributed to our survival is not only important from a scientific viewpoint, but can also inform on the mechanisms and genetic determinants of present-day susceptibility to disease,” study coauthor Luis Barreiro, a professor of genetic medicine at the University of Chicago, told CNN via email. 

  In the study, Barreiro and other researchers found that Black Death survivors in London and Denmark had genes that protected them against the plague pathogen. They found one particular gene, known as ERAP 2, was found to be protective against the virus. Before the plague, 40% of Londoners had the gene — after the epidemic, 50%. The same was for Denmark. About 40% had the gene before the plague, while 70% had it afterward. 

  “It’s a LONG process, but in the end you have the sequence of those genes for those people from before, during and after the plague and you can ask: Do the genes one population carried looked different than the ones another population carried,” said coauthor Hendrik Poinar, a professor of anthropology at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario in an email.

  But the gene came at a considerable cost for those who survived the Black Death as it increased future generations’ risks of autoimmune diseases. 

  “This suggests that populations that survived the Black Death paid a price, which is to have an immune system that increases our susceptibility to react against ourselves,” Barreiro said.

  The results highlight natural selection to present-day and how the Black Death altered more than society but the human immune system. Barreiro doesn’t believe Covid will have the same impact because it doesn’t kill across the age spectrum and primarily kills the elderly who aren’t procreating. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 10/21/2022 – 21:20

• Chinese Lab’s Purchase Of US Land For Primate Breeding Facility Draws Scrutiny
  Chinese Lab’s Purchase Of US Land For Primate Breeding Facility Draws Scrutiny

  Authored by Eva Fu via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A Chinese firm’s purchase of land in Florida to build a lab monkey breeding facility is drawing scrutiny over the company founders’ ties to the Chinese military.

  

  JOINN Laboratories CA Inc., the California subsidiary of a biotech firm headquartered in Beijing, in July purchased more than 1,400 acres of land for building a primate facility in Florida’s Levy County, county records show.

  With a combined value of $5.5 million, the 10 parcels of land purchased from L & T Cattle & Timber represents one of the largest known Chinese acquisitions of U.S. land in recent years. While construction has not begun, the deal has attracted public attention at a time of heightened concern about Chinese investments in the United States over security and other risks.

  The purchaser’s parent company JOINN Laboratories describes itself as a leader in non-clinical drug screening in China. According to its website, the company was founded in 1995 and employs over 1,500 staff. It has wholly-owned subsidiaries in major Chinese and U.S. cities, including Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, San Francisco, and Boston.

  Zhou Zhiwen and Feng Yuxia, the couple who founded and control JOINN Laboratories, both graduated from China’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences, in 1989 and 1992 respectively. The school is the Chinese military’s top medical institute, which was added to a U.S. trade blacklist last year for supplying biotechnology to the Chinese military.

  After graduating, both Zhou and Feng went on to work as researchers at the academy before establishing their business venture, according to Chinese media reports. Zuo Conglin, a board member of JOINN Laboratories, also graduated from the same academy.

  These links with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) should raise red flags, according to Rep. Scott Franklin (R-Fla.).

  “The idea that we would permit a … biotech firm with ties to the Chinese military to breed lab monkeys on U.S. soil is baffling, especially after China unleashed the Covid-19 pandemic on the world,” he told The Epoch Times.

  “The Biden administration allowing Chinese Communist Party affiliated companies to buy up American land is unacceptable, especially for these purposes. If the President won’t put his foot down to protect American interests, Congress will.”

  Future of Project Uncertain

  It’s unclear if JOINN Laboratories can proceed with its plans in Levy County. Because the purchased land is currently zoned for forestry and rural residential, the company would need to rezone the land to industrial to build its lab facility, the county said in a Sept. 22 statement.

  The county said that it had been asked about a possible rezoning of the land, and that it replied that “such a request would not receive a favorable staff recommendation” because of “compatibility” issues and that it would create “spot zoning,” referring to the controversial practice of singling out a piece of land for special zoning laws different from the zoning laws around it.

  

  County officials, when reached by The Epoch Times in early October, said it hasn’t received such a formal rezoning request from JOINN Laboratories.

  The company did not publicly announce the sale and not much is known about the proposed breeding facility. JOINN Laboratories didn’t respond to an inquiry from The Epoch Times regarding the purchase and its plans for the site.

  It’s unclear whether the company intends to sell the lab monkeys in the United States, China, or elsewhere. Both countries have a high demand for primates for experimental use, and the United States exports a large portion of monkeys from China.

  According to Chinese media reports, the average cost for a long-tailed macaque, commonly used for lab research, paid by the Chinese regime has soared from around 30,000 yuan ($4,153) in 2019 to over 130,000 yuan (around $18,000) in early 2022.

  JOINN Laboratories currently owns about 18 acres of animal testing facilities in Beijing and Suzhou, a major city in eastern China’s Jiangsu Province, according to its 2021 annual report. It is also building another primate breeding base with the capacity of raising 15,000 large animals in Wuzhou of southern China’s Guangxi Province. The quarantine station for the base is now complete, the report stated.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 10/21/2022 – 21:00

• Former Miss USA Executive Accused Of "Multiple" Incidents Of Sexual Misconduct
  Former Miss USA Executive Accused Of “Multiple” Incidents Of Sexual Misconduct

  The Miss USA pageant appears to be in complete shambles. 

  Not only is Miss USA vice president Max Sebrechts is being accused of “multiple” incidents of sexual misconduct, but the pageant is also in the midst of being accused of being rigged, an allegation that the Miss USA organization has denied. 

  

  Sebrechts is the husband of the national director of Miss USA and Miss Teen USA, Crystle Stewart. According to reporting by the New York Post, he allegedly “sent sexually explicit messages to multiple contestants”. The Post obtained photographs and video of Sebrechts stating he was looking for a “no strings attached” relationship. 

  The Miss USA pageant said it was “made aware of the allegations against Max Sebrechts regarding his behavior towards 2021 Miss USA contestants” back in December of last year. Since then, Sebrechts was removed from his position. 

  “Upon learning this, Miss Universe Organization conducted a review, which resulted in Max being completely removed from any affiliation with the Miss USA organization in January 2022,” a representative told The New York Post. 

  

  Sebrechts also reportedly had an affair in 2018 which the organization became aware of: “Five months after he had been removed, in June 2022, Miss Universe Organization was made aware that Max had an extramarital relationship in 2018, in which graphic text messages and images were exchanged, two years before his wife, Crystle Stewart, was awarded the Miss USA license.”

  “At least four” women were on the receiving end of advances from Sebrechts, the report says. 

  In one email to a woman, he wrote: “I’ve always wanted to at least tell you that I felt deeply attracted to you despite of my personal situation.” He continued:  “Maybe we could try [something] but def with no strings attached … And of course this is all between us, ok?”

  He also wrote to the same woman: “I was terribly attracted to your looks of course. Those tights you were wearing looked awfully sexy on your tight body. I’m at the office right now I’ll send you a pic tonight. Unless I run to the restroom, the thought of imagining you in those tights without underwear has quite an effect on me.”

  In at least one instance, he accompanied his email with a photograph:

  

  His advances prompted contestants to send complaints to Paula Shugart, the president of the Miss Universe Organization, the report says. 

  The pageant has denied that it took too long to act, stating: “Ms. Shugart was made aware of the allegations in December 2021 and upon learning of them, made the decision to insist on the removal of Mr. Sebrechts from Miss Brand. Paula did act on the accusations, insisting on the removal of Max from Miss Brand and any affiliation with Miss USA.”

  

  But Miss Wyoming Mackenzie Kern claimed that when women complained to Shugart, they were “ignored”. 

  “It’s no surprise that this was swept under the carpet,” one insider to The Post. You can read all of Sebrecht’s allegedly inappropriate texts and emails here. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 10/21/2022 – 20:40

• Prepare For China To Invade Taiwan This Year: Top Navy Official
  Prepare For China To Invade Taiwan This Year: Top Navy Official

  Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

  A high-level Navy official said Wednesday that the US should prepare for the possibility of China invading Taiwan as soon as this year. “So when we talk about the 2027 window, in my mind, that has to be a 2022 window or potentially a 2023 window. I can’t rule it out,” said Adm. Michael Gilday, the chief of naval operations.

  The “2027 window” refers to a claim from retired Adm. Phil Davidson, the former head of US Indo-Pacific Command, who said last year he believes China could invade within six years. Gilday said he was prioritizing a “fight tonight” posture for the US Navy with respect to China and Russia.

  

  Gilday said his assessment was based on comments Chinese President Xi Jinping made this week, although the Chinese leader only reiterated that he seeks “peaceful reunification” with Taiwan but won’t rule out the use of force.

  “It’s not just what President Xi says, but it’s how the Chinese behave and what they do,” Gilday said. “What we’ve seen over the past 20 years is that they have delivered on every promise they’ve made earlier than they said they were going to deliver on it.”

  While US officials are always warning that China is planning to invade Taiwan, Beijing has little interest in doing so as it would require the largest amphibious invasion in military history.

  If China chooses to take military action against Taiwan, it would likely initially opt for a blockade, which it simulated in unprecedented exercises around the island in response to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) visiting Taipei.

  Gilday’s warning comes as the US is working to send massive amounts of weapons to Taiwan. While done in the name of deterrence, China’s actions and rhetoric make it clear that more US support for Taiwan will make Chinese military action more likely.

  “When we talk about the 2027 window, in my mind that has to be a 2022 window or a potentially a 2023 window. I can’t rule that out. I don’t mean at all to be alarmist by saying that, it’s just that we can’t wish that away.” — @USNavyCNO https://t.co/tQLqQWDg1f

  — Ian Easton (@Ian_M_Easton) October 21, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  During his speech earlier this week, Xi also warned strongly against “interference” from outside forces, and other Chinese officials have explicitly warned that US support for Taiwan’s “independence forces” could lead to war.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 10/21/2022 – 20:20

• Appeals Court Halts Biden's Student Loan Forgiveness Program
  Appeals Court Halts Biden’s Student Loan Forgiveness Program

  Just one day after the Supreme Court shot down a Wisconsin group’s bid to block President Biden’s student loan relief program, another group led by six-GOP attorneys general was handed a win. 

  After a lower court dismissed the states’ bid to halt the program, the US Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit may give them a second chance. While they consider the case (and whether to issue a longer-standing injunction), the court has temporarily blocked the student loan scheme just days after millions of borrowers began applying.

  

  The order instructs the Biden administration not to begin discharging debt under the relief effort, while the Biden administration has until 6pm EST on Monday to respond.

  The six Republican-led states — Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and South Carolina — are trying to block Biden’s plan, and have argued that the Biden administration doesn’t have the power to issue nationwide debt relief without Congress. They’re also claiming that the policy would harm private companies that service some federal student loans by reducing their business.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 10/21/2022 – 20:00

• Top Secret Meetings? A Deep Dive Into Anthony Fauci's Calendar
  Top Secret Meetings? A Deep Dive Into Anthony Fauci’s Calendar

  Authored by Adam Andrzejewski via OpenTheBooks,

  On Tuesday, January 14, 2020 at 9am, Dr. Anthony Fauci joined staff at the National Security Council (NSC) — the President’s national security and foreign policy advisory shop — for a meeting in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building about the novel coronavirus. Fauci would continue to have meetings in classified settings throughout the month.

  

  Fauci’s calendar entries included NSC meetings, White House Situation Room meetings, and meetings in other classified settings, as Covid-19 was breaking in China. (To our knowledge, the existence of these meetings before January 28, 2020 were not previously disclosed.)

  On Friday, January 24th, four days after China admitted human-to-human transmission of the virus, Fauci started attending a small group Covid discussion that first took place in “Anthony’s Office” in a building next to the White House. Anthony, in this case, appears to be an NSC employee and an expert in biodefense and China.

  Flashing back to December 2019, when patients in Wuhan were showing up at hospitals with unidentified pneumonia cases, Fauci attended the National Institutes of Health — Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation dinner and workshops on December 19 and 20th – the sixth annual event for NIH staff and Gates Foundation executives.

  On the morning of the 19th, billionaire Bill Gates tweeted out his own hopes for the coming year and his now prescient prediction: “one of the best buys in global health: vaccines.”

  Today, we only know about these meetings, because our organization at OpenTheBooks.com, in partnership with the public-interest law firm Judicial Watch, sued the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in federal court. NIH had refused to even acknowledge our Freedom of Information Act request.

  So, for the first time, here is our exclusive release of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s official calendar:

  

  DOWNLOAD DR. FAUCI’S OFFICIAL CALENDAR HERE

  For a government bureaucrat, this sure was one tightly held calendar.

  The refusal by NIH to follow open records law was a strategy to delay transparency: NIH forced us into expensive taxpayer-paid litigation to slow-walk 156 pages of semi-redacted calendar production.

  Fauci’s calendar has 933 events during this five-month period – including 224 media interviews and 84 redacted events (only significant redactions that prevented analysis and understanding were counted, for example, phone number redactions were not included).

  It’s a document that NIH and Dr. Fauci didn’t want you to see…

  Why? What did Dr. Fauci know? And when did he know it?

  Following Fauci’s Timeline — Highlights

  November 6, 2019: Fauci’s calendar lists “GPMB Discussion Note.” This likely deals with the World Health Organization (WHO) and World Bank’s Global Preparedness Monitoring Board. Fauci is a past member of the GPMB board which was formed to “ensure[s] preparedness for global health crises.”

  On January 27, 2020, the GPMB convened regarding the Covid-19 outbreak and Fauci signed off on the group’s January 30, 2020 statement commending the WHO and the “transparency of China[…]”.  Judicial Watch’s FOIAs uncovered that this statement was organized and circulated by Wellcome Trust scientist and GPMB member Jeremy Farrar (who also organized a secret conference call with Fauci and others on February 1, 2020).

  November 12, 2019: Fauci flies to the Netherlands. His multi-day itinerary is not listed. The Netherlands is home to the father of “gain-of-function,” high-risk researcher Dr. Ron Fouchier. Fauci’s NIH Institute, NIAID, paused (2014) then restarted (Jan. 2019) funding to the controversial researcher who (using NIH funds) created an H5N1 bird flu in his lab with pandemic potential. He did so by passaging the virus through ferrets multiple times, until it gained a new function by going airborne and infecting a ferret in a different cage.

  November 25, 2019: Fauci joins Ambassador Deborah Birx, the Global AIDS Coordinator at a World AIDS Day (WAD) evening event hosted by the Business Council for International Understanding (BCIU).  On February 27, 2020, Dr. Birx is appointed to join Fauci on Trump’s Covid-19 Task Force.

  Earlier that day, Fauci has a “Pre-Brief for US Japan Biodefense Meeting.” In 2004, as I previously reported at Forbes, Fauci received a permanent pay adjustment for his “biodefense” work. Fauci is the top-paid federal employee, specifically because he was paid to prevent the next pandemic.

  November 25, 2019: Fauci has a call with his future biographer, Janet Tobias, who later produces the ‘FAUCI’ documentary.

  December 3, 2019: Fauci has a call with Victor Dzau, who is the president of the National Academy of Medicine, a Duke University professor, and a man whose Chinese family fled to Hong Kong to escape China’s civil war.

  December 19, 2019: Fauci attends an “NIH Gates Fdn dinner” at “The Cloisters,” likely the one in Lutherville, MD, an hour from NIH.

  Earlier that morning, Bill Gates tweeted out what has become a much-discussed prediction, “What’s next for our foundation? I’m particularly excited about what the next year could mean for one of the best buys in global health: vaccines.”

  Fauci and top officials, such as NIH director Francis Collins and HHS assistant secretary for health Brett Giroir, joined Bill and Melinda Gates executives during the dinner and on panels the next day, according to a press report from the time.

  

  January 17, 2020: Fauci has a call to discuss “CDC Gao Writing Request.”  This is presumably related to George Gao, Director-General of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

  January 23, 2020: Fauci had an 8am, in-person meeting with Dr. James LeDuc. LeDuc ran one of the few BSL-4 biocontainment labs in the country (think: moon-suit stuff), at the University of Texas Medical Branch, where he has long-trained Chinese scientists from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) lab in BSL-4 biosafety procedures.

  Emails acquired by FOIA from the U.S. Right To Know (USRTK) organization revealed that LeDuc was sending backchannel emails with his Wuhan colleagues to get information on the novel coronavirus outbreak, and even soliciting edits and corrections from Wuhan’s so-called “bat lady” Shi Zhengli for his April 2020 Congressional testimony.

  LeDuc’s emails show he was communicating with his virologist  colleague Yuan Zhiming, who was in charge of the WIV BSL-4 lab. LeDuc wrote an op-ed published on January 24 about his U.S.-China working relationship.

  It’s possible this drop-by visit by LeDuc was to let Fauci know what he was hearing from Wuhan, and perhaps, not put that news in email.

  By 4:30 that afternoon, LeDuc and former Ft. Detrick BSL-4 biolab director Dave Franz joined Health and Human Services (HHS) Robert Kadlec for a conference call, a call revealed in USRTK’s document production from the University of Texas (pg 3409).

  Franz emailed a brief note that same day “to facilitate [the] call.” The email described his and LeDuc’s work since 2007 as establishing a relationship with Chinese scientists (pg 115).

  In other words, LeDuc was in town to talk about China and the Wuhan lab with top-HHS and former military biolab officials.

  Thus, while the public discussion was and would remain that the virus had a natural origin, behind the scenes, people were being briefed on the U.S.-Chinese scientists’ interactions and the Wuhan lab itself.

  Top-Secret Meetings

  Unreported until now, throughout late January and February 2020, Fauci was in meetings with the National Security Council (NSC) and in top-secret settings – including in the White House Situation Room. Fauci was also in small, “restricted” meetings with the NSC.

  Were all these top-secret meetings known to the President, and do they give the impression people-in-the-know thought the virus had a natural origin?

  January 14 and 16, 2020: Fauci has a 9am “Novel Corona Virus PCC/Synch Meeting” with Phil Ferro, NSC and Executive Office of the President, on the 14th and a “Novel Corona Virus Touch Base” with Ferro on the 16th.

  January 20: China announced to the world that the virus has human-to-human transmission, an admission that they had a possible pandemic virus on their hands.

  January 21: Fauci’s NSC meeting gets a new name (“nCoV-PCC”) and the meeting now includes secure video teleconference (SVTC).

  January 21: Fauci is interviewed by The Wall Street Journal reporter Betsy McKay on the listed topic “Coronavirus & HIV Papers.” Is she asking Fauci about an upcoming scientific paper (published January 31st by Indian scientists, but quickly withdrawn by the authors, amid intense criticism) that noted an “uncanny similarity” between the HIV virus and the spike protein in the Covid-19 virus?

  Because bats don’t contract HIV, such a similarity would point to a lab creation for the novel virus.

  An hour earlier, Fauci had a call with Peter Hotez about an “Anti-SARS vaccine candidate.” Hotez is an NIH-funded, Texas-based scientist and vaccine researcher, who had a $6 million NIH grant since 2012 studying a “SARS vaccine for biodefense.” Hotez developed a non-mRNA vaccine model, that won recent approval for distribution in some foreign countries, such as India.

  January 22: The COVID-19 meetings with Fauci rise to a new level as Fauci’s calendar shows him in the White House Situation Room (“WHSR”), from ~1:30-3 this day for “nCoV PCC”

  January 24: From ~1:30-2:30 Fauci has a “nCoV Small Group Discussion” at the EEOB, next to the White House, in “Anthony’s Office” Room 381. (nCoV stands for novel coronavirus and was the reference given to Covid-19, before it was officially named SARS-CoV-2.) This is one of the few times no last name is listed on Fauci’s calendar. The meeting entry in our FOIA production is cut off but includes “***Please  ”, the entry also includes an attachment, which NIH currently has not released to OpenTheBooks.com.

  “Anthony’s Office” Clue from February 5: From 2:30-3:30pm on Feb. 5, Fauci’s calendar shows an EEOB “Restricted Small Group” meeting with Anthony Ruggierro, who is listed as with the Executive Office of the President/NSC. Anthony Ruggierro, according to his public LinkedIn page, was NSC “Special Assistant to the President, Senior Director for Counterproliferation and Biodefense” at the time of the meeting. Thus, it’s likely the January 24th EEOB meeting in “Anthony’s Office” was with the same man as the Feb. 5th meeting: Anthony Ruggierro.

  January 27, 2020: From 2:30-3:30pm, Fauci has an “NSC Deputy Call” in the NIH SCIF. (SCIF stands for “Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility” and is usually a room reserved for sensitive or classified briefings.) Trump’s National Security Council Deputy at the time was Matthew Pottinger. The subject of the call is not noted on the calendar.

  (Also on January 27th, Fauci met with the CEO of Moderna, Stephane Bancel.)

  January 28, 2020: A Fauci/NSC Covid-19 meeting was previously disclosed by Sharri Markson, who reported in her book What Really Happened in Wuhan that Pottinger called the January 28 meeting with Fauci, HHS Secretary Azar, and CDC Director Redfield just after Pottinger heard from Chinese dissident and human rights activist Wei Jingsheng about the virus breaking in China.

  From January 16 through January 29, with few exceptions, Fauci’s weekday calendar shows a Covid meeting, either in person or by phone via secure video teleconference (SVTC) with Phil Farro, who is with the Office of the President and the NSC.

  January 22: Fauci has an hour and half blocked off for the Covid meeting in the White House Situation Room.

  January 27: If he didn’t know before, emails released to the U.S. House Oversight and Reform Committee reveal that on this date, Fauci got definitive word from his staff that NIAID, his institute, funded a bat coronavirus grant to EcoHealth Alliance who collaborated with the Wuhan Institute of Virology and Dr. Ralph Baric. If the virus was from the WIV, Fauci now knew he had funded the Chinese lab.

  January 31: Fauci is in the Oval Office, meeting, presumably, with the President.

  February 4: By this date, according to released emails, Fauci and the federally funded scientists he consults with, have decided that Covid-19 came from nature via a bat, through some intermediate species. Behind the scenes, they are drafting papers arguing that any position besides a natural origin is a conspiracy theory.

  Yet, Fauci keeps meeting with Anthony Ruggiero, NSC’s biodefense and China expert (1/25 and 2/5). Are they thinking Covid may have come from a lab leak?

  February 11: Fauci has a meeting with Dr. Ralph Baric, the University of North Carolina coronavirus scientist, arguably the nation’s foremost expert on bat coronaviruses. The meeting includes Emily Erbelding, the Director of the NIAID Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases.

  Baric had a long-working relationship with the Wuhan lab, and, it would later be revealed, applied  (unsuccessfully) for a $14 million DARPA grant with the Wuhan Institute of Virology and EcoHealth Alliance to insert a furin cleavage site into a chimeric bat virus and passage it through “humanized” mice to see if it had pandemic potential. Some virologists have called that leaked document a recipe for the Covid-19 virus.

  The Fauci/Baric meeting backs up against the NSC meeting with Phil Ferro. It’s not clear where Baric is during the meeting, if in-person or by phone. Was Baric on the NSC call or listening in?

  (Previously at Forbes, I wrote about how Fauci continued to fund scientists like Baric and Fouchier by giving exemptions and narrowly defining scrutinized research – circumventing funding bans by Presidents Obama and Trump.) 

  February 17: “Proximal Origins,” a paper that Fauci apparently helped edit and was organized by NIH-funded Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance, stated that the Covid-19 virus was from nature and called any suggestion otherwise a conspiracy. Largely based on this paper, scientific discussion and social media posts suggesting a lab leak were censored as misinformation.

  Other Items of Interest

  Between 25 November 2019 and 26 February 2020, Fauci does three events with the American Society of Microbiology (ASM): a “Biothreats” discussion (11/25/2019); the ASM biothreats conference (1/29/2020); and meets with the ASM board (2/26/2020).

  January 7 and 9, 2020: Fauci did his first interviews on corona: 1. With CTV (Canadian TV) on the “pneumonia outbreak in China”; and 2. With Voice of America (VOA) on the “Wuhan pneumonia.” We couldn’t find the interviews published anywhere on the internet.

  While the NIH keeps a public record of interviews Fauci conducted since January 27, 2020, we identified 34 other interviews with him discussing the conronavirus from January 7 to January 26.

  Between January 27 and February 24, Fauci meets or has calls with Stephane Bancel, the CEO of Moderna (1/27); Jeremy Farrar of Wellcome Trust (British health non-profit focused on vaccines) (2/1); Biotech executive and former NIH staffer Gary Nabel (2/6); and Johnson & Johnson Chief Scientist Paul Stoffels (2/24).

  February 7: Fauci receives training on personal protective equipment (PPE). Given his varying recommendations on PPE early in the pandemic, it would be interesting to know what training he received.

  March 18: Fauci logged a meeting entitled “code red” with a follow up meeting on March 20th. No further details were listed.

  March 26: Fauci did four YouTube hits of 15 minutes each. Fauci’s calendar titled these events: “FDA Califf Request”—likely referencing Robert Califf. At the time, Califf was leading healthcare strategy at Alphabet (Google and YouTube parent company). Robert Califf is the current U.S. Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the former commissioner under Obama.

  Summary

  The official work calendar is an historic hour-by-hour documentation of Dr. Anthony Fauci in the months leading up to and during the publicly announced Covid-pandemic.

  Even with this topline calendar transparency, NIH admits to holding an additional 60,000 pages of backup documentation. The federal court is allowing us to ask for specific items.

  Therefore, if there is a specific document of oversight interest, please send our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com a message via the ‘contact us’ portion of our website.

  The historic release of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s work calendar leaves all of us with more questions than answers.

  It’s incumbent upon Congress to exert its right to oversight.

  Note: We reached out for comment to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and other top scientists mentioned on Fauci’s calendar. None gave us comment by our deadline.

  Additional Reading:

  Dr. Anthony Fauci’s Little Known Biodefense Work. It’s How He Became The Highest Paid Federal Employee. Published October 20, 2021 | Forbes

  Breaking: Fauci’s Net Worth Soared To $12.6 Million During The Pandemic – Up $5 Million (2019-2021). Published September 28, 2022 | OpenTheBooks.Substack.com

  Dr. Anthony Fauci: The Highest Paid Employee In The Entire U.S. Federal Government Published January 21, 2021 | Forbes

  No, Fauci’s Records Aren’t Available. Why Won’t NIH Immediately Release Them? Published January 12, 2022 | Forbes

  How Fact-Finding Fauci Led To My Cancellation At Forbes | March 9, 2022 | OpenTheBooks.Substack.com

  Judicial Watch: Fauci Emails Show WHO Pushing For A Press Release “Especially” Supporting China’s Response To The Coronavirus | Judicial Watch | October 23, 2020

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 10/21/2022 – 19:40

• Florida Official Warns: Thousands Of Flooded Electric Vehicles "At Risk Of Fire" After Hurricane
  Florida Official Warns: Thousands Of Flooded Electric Vehicles “At Risk Of Fire” After Hurricane

  Florida’s top financial officer and fire marshal, Jimmy Patronis, warned there are huge fire risks across areas of Florida that were submerged by Hurricane Ian due to waterlogged electric vehicles spontaneously erupting into flames. He warned that some of these EVs have already caught fire while many more are still at risk.

  “Still assessing the fire risks of EVs from Ian. Based on registrations, there were 4,100 + EVs in the area inundated by surge. (That’s registered, not confirmed impacted. Asked the manufacturers for info.) Here’s a yard where the EVs are separated in case of fire. Lots of Teslas,” Patronis tweeted. 

  Still assessing the fire risks of EVs from Ian. Based on registrations, there were 4,100 + EVs in the area inundated by surge. (That’s registered, not confirmed impacted. Asked the manufacturers for info.) Here’s a yard where the EVs are separated in case of fire. Lots of Teslas. pic.twitter.com/v18tIVVfbk

  — Jimmy Patronis (@JimmyPatronis) October 21, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Earlier this month, Patronis tweeted: “There’s a ton of EVs disabled from Ian. As those batteries corrode, fires start.” 

  We immediately picked up on his tweet earlier this month and wrote a note on flooded Teslas exploding titled “Flooded Electric Vehicles Spontaneously Catch On Fire In Florida After Hurricane.” 

  There’s a ton of EVs disabled from Ian. As those batteries corrode, fires start. That’s a new challenge that our firefighters haven’t faced before. At least on this kind of scale. #HurricaneIan pic.twitter.com/WsErgA6evO

  — Jimmy Patronis (@JimmyPatronis) October 6, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Since we first reported the issue, there have been many questions about how many EVs were submerged. Now it appears there could be hundreds, if not thousands. And at any point, these vehicles could erupt in flames. 

  We outlined one year ago that “First Responders Aren’t Prepared For Lithium Fires When Teslas Crash And Uncontrollably Burn.”

  Patronis pointed out that firefighters in Florida aren’t prepared for lithium battery fires. Local governments have already towed flooded EVs into sandy fields to avoid the risk of fire harming people and/or burning down building structures. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 10/21/2022 – 19:20

• Aussie Bank Begins Linking Customer Transactions To Carbon Footprint
  Aussie Bank Begins Linking Customer Transactions To Carbon Footprint

  Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

  In another foretaste of potential future ‘carbon allowance’ limits, a major bank in Australia has introduced a new feature that links purchases to a customer’s carbon footprint and warns them when they are going over the average.

  

  Australia’s Commonwealth Bank (CBA) has partnered with Cogo, a “carbon management solutions” company, to launch the new feature, which is part of CBA’s online banking platform.

  The bank gives the customer the option to “pay a fee” to offset their carbon footprint, with the average listed as 1,280 kilograms, a long way from the ‘sustainable’ figure of 200 kilograms.

  

  A person’s carbon footprint is calculated and then an ‘equivalent’ metric is show to make the customer feel guilty about it, such as “8 trees being cut”.

  “By combining our rich customer data and CoGo’s industry-leading capability in measuring carbon outputs, we will be able to provide greater transparency for customers so that they can take actionable steps to reduce their environmental footprint,” CommBank Group executive Angus Sullivan said in a statement.

  The bank has promised to refine the calculation down to showing how much CO2 individual purchases are responsible for.

  

  While initially presented as a handy way for someone to track their consumption habits and the supposed impact they have on the environment, some fear that such schemes could one day become mandatory and place limits on purchases of customers who exceed their ‘carbon allowance.’

  As we previously highlighted, allied with climate lockdowns, technocrats want to exploit hysteria over climate change to increase financial control over individuals.

  Such a proposal was presented in the science journal Nature by four environmental “experts” as a means of reducing global carbon emissions.

  Everyone would be issued with a ‘carbon allowance card’ “that would entail all adults receiving an equal tradable carbon allowance that reduces over time in line with national [carbon] targets.”

  The authors make it clear that the program would be a “national mandatory policy.”

  Carbon units would be “deducted from the personal budget with every payment of transport fuel, home-heating fuels and electricity bills,” and anyone going over the limit would be forced to purchase additional units in the personal carbon market from those with excess to sell.”

  Of course, the wealthy would be easily able to afford the offsets, and many of them are directly invested in the trading mechanisms that the scheme would be based on.

  The proposal makes clear that the means of measuring a person’s uptake of carbon units for travel would function “on the basis of the tracking the user’s movement history.”

  The authors note that mass compliance with COVID-19 lockdown regulations has greased the skids for further intrusive tyranny and that, “people may be more prepared to accept the tracking and limitations related to PCAs to achieve a safer climate” as a result.

  *  *  *

  Brand new merch now available! Get it at https://www.pjwshop.com/

  In the age of mass Silicon Valley censorship It is crucial that we stay in touch.  I need you to sign up for my free newsletter here. Support my sponsor – Turbo Force – a supercharged boost of clean energy without the comedown. Get early access, exclusive content and behind the scenes stuff by following me on Locals.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 10/21/2022 – 19:00

• Circle K To Start Selling Marijuana At Its Florida Stores
  Circle K To Start Selling Marijuana At Its Florida Stores

  In another big step along America’s path to normalizing the use of a once-taboo plant, major convenience-store chain Circle K will begin selling marijuana at its Florida gas stations. 

  Circle K’s foray into the marijuana business will go live in 2023, through a partnership with Chicago-based Green Thumb Industries, a medical and recreational cannabis wholesaler and retailer with a presence in 15 states. Florida’s marijuana market is the country’s second largest, trailing only California.  

  Green Thumb CEO Ben Kovler calls the new venture a “game-changer”: 

  “The new RISE Express model is a huge step forward in making it easier and more efficient for patients to purchase high-quality cannabis as part of their everyday routine when stopping by their local convenience store.” 

  Circle K parent Couche-Tard is a global pioneer. “Legal marijuana has so far been sold only in stand-alone dispensaries in the US and within pharmacies in countries such as Uruguay and Germany,” reports Bloomberg. Couche-Tard also has a Canadian convenience-store cannabis pilot with Fire & Flower.

  

  Under the arrangement, Green Thumb will operate “RISE Express” stores that will be partitioned from the convenience stores and have separate entrances. Since Florida law only allows medical use, there will be no recreational sales. There are many conditions and symptoms that can qualify Floridians to receive a medical marijuana card, and some 700,000 residents have been issued one.  

  Circle K has 600 stores in Florida. Starting with a 10-store “test and learn” phase, Green Thumb subsidiary RISE Dispensaries will sell a variety of branded cannabis products, including pre-rolled joints, flower, gummies and vapes. 

  With more than 7,000 Circle K stores in 47 states, Circle K is the largest independent convenience store operator in the United States. Green Thumb’s Kovler says “there’s appetite” at Circle K to try the model outside Florida too.

  The news comes a few weeks after President Biden ordered an “expeditious” review of how marijuana is scheduled under the Controlled Substances Act. It’s currently in the same category as heroin, LSD and ecstasy.  

  Meanwhile, a new Morning Consult/Politico survey finds 60% of Americans support legalization, including a 47% plurality of Republicans. 

  In our new survey, 60% of U.S. voters say #marijuana use should be made legal in the United States, compared with 27% who say it should not be. https://t.co/JFsd013Xjz pic.twitter.com/lVAFnak989

  — Morning Consult (@MorningConsult) October 5, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  With a major, mainstream brand now entering the marijuana business, look for the country’s wasteful and destructive prohibition regime to continue crumbling.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 10/21/2022 – 18:40

• 5,000 Duplicate Ballots Sent To California Voters In Riverside County
  5,000 Duplicate Ballots Sent To California Voters In Riverside County

  Authored by Caden Pearson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Around 5,000 residents of Riverside County in California received a duplicated ballot ahead of the November midterm elections this week, which officials blamed on a computer system error.

  

  Riverside County Registrar of Voters office said the 5,000 duplicate ballots were erroneously mailed to some voters in Canyon Lake, Menifee, Murrieta, Wildomar, and Winchester after a computer system error “mistakenly generated” the mailing files.

  Officials said the error was identified over the weekend before they could be stopped from being delivered to the U.S. Postal Service. 

  “It is important to note that none of the duplicate ballots will result in a voter being able to cast more than one ballot,” said Registrar of Voters Rebecca Spencer in a statement. “I take election integrity seriously and apologize for the inconvenience.

  Spencer said that every vote-by-mail envelope has a bar code and that once scanned as accepted at the Registrar of Voters office it automatically locks the voter’s record so that the person can only vote once.

  Residents who received two ballots were advised to use vote with one and destroy the second, which Spencer said would be automatically voided once the other is scanned.

  “The first ballot received would be processed and the second ballot would be automatically voided,” she said.

  The country’s Registrar of Voters office said the computer system error was resolved and procedures have been put in place to prevent the error in the future.

  California is one of nine states—including Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, and Washington—to mail ballots to all registered voters.

  All 50 states offer vote-by-mail, or absentee, ballot options to varying degrees.

  California also offers early in-person voting, along with 45 other states. Alabama, Connecticut, Mississippi, and New Hampshire are the only exceptions, although all four provide vote-by-mail ballot options.

  California also offers a 29-day period for in-person early voting. This year that is slated for Oct. 10 to Nov. 7.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 10/21/2022 – 18:20

• "Strong As Hell" Economy Is A Mirage Of Math
  “Strong As Hell” Economy Is A Mirage Of Math

  Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns blog,

  “President” Joe Biden described the US economy as, “Strong as hell,” in a recent sound bite. No one except his most ardent supporters, a vanishingly small number in reality, believes that.

  

  He and they point to statistics, “internals” in Biden-speaks, that point to why the US is better off than everyone else. Well, yes, we may be better than everyone else, that doesn’t however mean the economy is “strong as hell.”

  It just means it is the most attractive horse at the glue factory, to invoke more Biden-esque rhetoric.

  Honestly, I was waiting for a Corn Pop reference, but Fox cut away too quickly.

  The headline numbers — jobs, U-3 unemployment, etc. — don’t tell the whole story. If anything they tell a story directly opposite of what they normally would. Why? Math.

  U-3 unemployment measures people still in the workforce looking for work, defined by those applying for unemployment. I don’t know about you but we’ve all heard the stories of record job openings. This also means the economy is supposed to be strong.

  But then why are real wages negative? Why are they not only lagging inflation but slowing rapidly in nominal terms while headline (and massively understated) inflation is rising.

  

  Taken together these statistics give you a clearer picture of the labor market in the US.

  Low wage jobs and job openings remain high as the supply of low and medium skilled workers remains tight. Anyone who wants a job as a waitress, register jockey, customer service folks, etc. can have one. These are the people most likely, by the way, to file for unemployment.

  In fact, these are the people unemployment insurance is suppose to target to help them through the job transition.

  But when layoffs, which are concentrated in the higher paying jobs and those jobs are literally retired, then those folks 1) don’t file for unemployment and 2) contribute heavily towards real median household wages dropping.

  Someone making $100k as a middle manager or department chief isn’t filing for unemployment because, more often than not, they don’t even qualify for benefits. So, again they won’t show up in the normal headline statistics.

  In previous recessions when the credit cycle was virtuous and it could be pumped up again by central bank largesse of one form or another, it was always cut the little guy who is easily replaced and hold onto the best mid and upper professionals to keep the company operating smoothly.

  Now we have the opposite problem. Companies are top heavy and bottom light.

  I can’t throw a stick and not hit a basic business with a help wanted sign out for entry-level jobs in my area of Florida. And Florida’s economy is booming!

  My favorite local restaurant had to shut down on Monday’s after COVID last year because, “We can’t find anyone to work. Sorry.” Then they shut down DINNER and were only open until 2pm all week. Slowly they are resuming normal hours. Last night I was pleasantly surprised that Wed-Fri are now normal dinner hours.

  This is a nothing fancy, southern burger/ribs and fries joint. But they were able to survive.

  But the reality is that the Fed’s restrictive monetary policy is having the desired effect of contracting credit-based asset prices, causing deflation there — housing, Class A office space, used car prices, etc. That, in turn, is putting extreme pressure on leveraged assets based on those things and those entities invested in those leveraged products.

  LQD and HYG are down hard this year. HYG is the 3rd worst, year-to-date, in redemptions, $-6.8 Billion. LQD is up $3.1 Billion in AUM. Clearly, looking at this list of ETF in and out flows the shift is out of high risk and into low risk assets, including banks.

  

  The market is clearly signaling it needs higher returns from debt in this environment. As prices on US Treasuries come down they are being bought up all across the yield curve. S&P 500 net flows? Positive. Russell 2000? Negative.

  Dividend stock flows, positive. Industrials and Europe, negative.

  In response to Biden’s idiocy and reports from Bloomberg that economists’ predictions of the US falling into a recession next year rose to 100%, I was contacted by Sputnik News again to provide some commentary on the matter.

  As always, for the sake of full disclosure and clarity here are my full comments and Sputnik’s questions. I hope you find them helpful:

  Biden has repeatedly said the US will avoid recession and that any downturn would be “very slight” – why has the President ignored the real situation so far?

  Because “Biden” is desperately trying to massage the message coming into the mid-term elections in three weeks.  That he and his staff are still trying to convince people of this at this late date tells you they’ve seen the polling and it is terrible.

  All of the main issues the Democrats have tried to persuade voters on – abortion, Ukraine, gun control, January 6th – have failed to resonate.  They rank as the lowest concerns among Americans coming into the election.

  Trying to jawbone the economy is a signal they know they are going to lose and want to pivot after the vote to blaming it on the Republicans.  Standard issue American politics.

  How much of a blow could such a forecast be ahead of the November midterms?

  Not much at this point.  People’s minds are made up.  The only question is how much overt cheating will be done in crucial races to limit the damage.  The Democrats nearly lost control over the New York caucus in 2020 they are on track to lose those seats they won through vote harvesting weeks after election night. 

  The president has focused on strong job growth – to what extent can his campaigning help Democrats retain their House and Senate majorities in elections?

  Strong job growth?  Really?  With 18 straight months of real wages not keeping pace with inflation?  The Democrats’ core voters are the upper end of the wage-earning scale.  This is a low unemployment situation like we’ve never seen in the US.  There’s a glut of minimum wage job openings and employers paying good money for basic jobs while professional jobs are getting axed by the tens of thousands.

  And, oh by the way, those people don’t apply for and in make cases don’t qualify for unemployment benefits.  So, low U-3 unemployment is a result of dislocations in the workforce that are abnormal.

  No one is going to thank Joe Biden for giving them access to the fry cook job at the local Wendy’s when they used to run a factory. 

  A separate Bloomberg survey of 42 economists predicts the probability of a recession over the next 12 months now stands at 60 percent, up from 50 percent a month earlier. What has changed? Do you believe the recession is inevitable?

  Recession is already here.  We’ve had 2 straight quarters of negative GDP growth, which has been their metric for an economic downturn for almost three generations.  Playing word games is nothing more than electioneering.

  The Fed is not bluffing about raising interest rates.  The global economy is unbalanced and unsustainable thanks to 14 years of central bank largesse fueling credit bubbles the world over which are now popping.

  And the Fed knows this, understands this and also understands that the way out of the current mess is through it not by avoiding it again with more monetary heroin.  This heroin is like the fentanyl crisis here in the US, damaging to us while others prosper.  The offshore dollar markets are the ones who are screaming for a Fed bailout, not the US corporates.

  They’ll scream in a while, but not today.  You only need to look at who is angry to know who is getting crushed by the Fed’s defending the US dollar through tight monetary policy. 

  The Fed is engineering a controlled demolition of leveraged credit markets.  This is the only path out of complete and utter global economic collapse.  They have the tools, the incentives, and the fiscal room right now to make that happen. 

  Talk to me in two years and I’ll likely have a different answer.

  If the US does in fact fall into recession, what effect will it have on the international economic situation?  

  I feel that with the Fed acting the way it is that they are clawing back capital sent overseas to support globalism through the hyper-financialization of capital markets.  Risk is not assessed through interest rates properly anymore based on the quality of the investment rather on the expectation of central bank policy.

  I believe strongly that Jay Powell, the FOMC board and the Fed’s backers on Wall St. understand this and that it is time to reverse what we’ve become used to.  With most of the Global South working to de-dollarize their trade, the Fed has no choice but to do this. 

  That doesn’t mean they aren’t going to make it as painful as possible in the process.  Of course, they are. But, at the same time there are many who are truly over-leveraged here without the Fed and the US liquefying their capital markets, and I’m thinking specifically Europe and the UK.

  The “Biden” administration realizes now that the American public is with the Fed if it means a return to sound fiscal policy, a return to cultural norms and the end of the Democrats’ woke craziness.

  That will be the GOP’s sell after the mid-terms.  GOP leadership will be dragged kicking and screaming into finally embracing America First six years after electing Trump.  And the rest of the world better brace for a very hard landing for everyone over the next few years.

  *  *  *

  Join my Patreon if you are good at math

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 10/21/2022 – 17:40

• This Chinese Chip Company Exploits Key Gap In Biden's Export Curbs
  This Chinese Chip Company Exploits Key Gap In Biden’s Export Curbs

  The Biden administration’s sweeping regulations that curb the sale of semiconductors and chipmaking equipment to China and pull American workers out of the country appear to have a gap that one Chinese chip designer is exploiting. 

  Bloomberg said Chinese startup Biren Technology had developed artificial intelligence chips that compete with graphics chips from Nvidia Corp., which can no longer be sold in China due to new export controls on the chip industry. But people familiar with the matter said the sanctions don’t cover Biren’s AI chips produced by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. 

  Biren has claimed that its chips outperform Nvidia’s A100 AI accelerator — the product that the Biden administration said couldn’t be sold for fears Beijing will use these chips to enhance military capabilities. 

  TSMC and Biren concluded the new Chinese chip’s specs fall just short of Biden’s restriction, according to one of the people, which may suggest Washington’s ability to annihilate China’s chip industry doesn’t entirely limit all alternatives to Nvidia’s hardware. 

  The gap in new restrictions was also pointed out by Bernstein analysts led by Mark Li in a note to clients:

  “Biren has a chip fortunately just below the threshold and the chip hence can still be made by TSMC.” 

  Bernstein’s analysis shows that Biren’s flagship BR100 falls just under the connectivity speeds and operations per second of the restrictions. In the meantime, Biren may continue developing its high-end semiconductors that are alternatives to US chips though Washington’s curbs are capping its technological process. 

  

  In response to Washington’s latest restrictions, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology summoned executives from the country’s top chip firms for emergency meetings this week to evaluate the damage. 

  And the restrictions might expand in the coming weeks, if not months. South China Morning Post reported Biden administration is exploring new export controls that would limit China to quantum computing and artificial intelligence software. 

  As for now, at least one Chinese chip designer has navigated through Biden’s export restrictions to produce advanced chips.  

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 10/21/2022 – 17:24

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